Saturday, October 31, 2015

Tonight is the first episode of Ash vs Evil Dead, and millions of horror fans will be tuning in to see Ash and his trusty chainsaw do battle against the forces of evil. This is also a welcome return to horror for Sam Raimi, who created the series, directed the first episode, and couldn't be happier to give fans what they've been asking for. Ahead of the premiere, I had the honor of speaking with Sam Raimi, and he was was very candid about bringing Ash to the small screen and the challenges of shooting for TV. He also settled a debate among Evil Dead fans on where the 2013 Fede Alvarez movie fits within the Evil Dead universe:

From shout outs to Ash's alma mater to the cabin in the woods, there are plenty of hidden Easter Eggs in 'Ash Vs Evil Dead'

With three movies and a quasi-remake/sequel that is officially part of Evil Dead lore, there is a lot of existing material to pull from in creating Ash Vs. Evil Dead for TV. And while there will be more than enough obvious references and homages to the original trilogy resting on the surface throughout this 10-episode run, there are also plenty of Easter Eggs hidden deep within the show itself. If you're a huge fan of Ashley Williams and his fight against this all-consuming force of darkness, you'll notice some of these treasures right away. Some are more obscure. And a lot of them are layered on top of each other in scenes that require a quick eye and a fast pause button.

In the pantheon of movie heroes, Ashley J. Williams is an original, from his chainsaw-enabled arm to his trash-talking of demonic foes. For the character’s comeback, however, actor Bruce Campbell borrowed a move from one of his predecessors.

None other than William Shatner passed down a technique that led to some stunt driving for Campbell in the first episode of the new TV series “Ash Vs. Evil Dead,” premiering Halloween night on Starz.

Tonight Starz will be premiering their new original series, Ash Vs. Evil Dead. The series has already earned rave reviews and high praise from fans who saw the first episode at New York Comic Con, and has already been renewed. With the first episode directed by Sam Raimi, the half hour horror-comedy is a fun return to the Evil Dead universe from almost 35 years ago. Bruce Campbell once again returns to the role of anti-hero Ash Williams, this time joined on his journey by Ray Santiago’s Pablo and friend Dana Delorenzo’s Kelly, followed by Michigan State Trooper Amanda Fisher, played by Jill Marie Jones, and a mystery woman named Ruby, played by Lucy Lawless. I spoke with Delorenzo, Jones, and Lawless about their characters, the continued appeal of Ash Williams and Evil Dead, and joy and pain of filming with all that blood.

Get Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi into a room together and the entire Evil Dead franchise makes sense — the balance between horror and comedy, the mixture of pure fun and delirious terror, the asshole characters that you can’t help but root for. It’s all Sam and Bruce.

Evil Dead fans have cause to rejoice, as Ash vs Evil Dead makes its debut on Starz this Saturday. Returning as Ash Williams from the Evil Dead trilogy is, of course, Bruce Campbell – this time joined by Lucy Lawless, as a woman named Ruby who’s not exactly happy with Ash.

At the recent New York Comic-Con, Cosmic Book News and a group of fellow journalists spoke to Sam Raimi and producer Craig DiGregorio about the new Starz Ash Vs. Evil Dead series, which premiers Halloween night.

Sam Raimi is the executive producer on the series and directed the first episode. Of course, Raimi directed all three of the Evil Dead films and is known for his work on the Spider-Man franchise as well as Hercules, Xena and Spartacus.

Craig DiGregorio is the executive producer and showrunner on Ash Vs. Evil Dead who has previously worked on Chuck and Workaholics.

Sam Raimi finally gave us more Evil Dead, and not just another movie but a whole TV series. He even directed the pilot of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, starring Bruce Campbell, but of course Sam Raimi is a movie director. He can’t run a show full time, so he found an experienced show runner.

Craig DiGregorio has worked on Chuck, Reaper, Workaholics and more. He was on a panel with Raimi and Campbell for the Television Critics Association this summer, where Campbell characteristically took over and Raimi modestly downplayed his greatest contributions. We got to speak with DiGregorio at length about Ash Vs. Evil Dead, which picks up Ash today living in a trailer and working at Value Stop when he reads from the Necronomicon he’s kept all these years. Lucy Lawless also stars as Ruby, the daughter of Professor Knowby, whose incantation Ash played in the cabin. Hit the jump for the Ash Vs Evil Dead Interview with showrunner Craig DiGregorio.

This Saturday, the highly-anticipated horror series “Ash Vs. Evil Dead” premieres on Starz.

In celebration of this joyous even, series stars Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo join Fandemonium to give the boom-stick a rest, do some talking of their own, and play a rousing game of Name That ASH-Hole!

Bruce Campbell has returned as the iconic Deadite slayer Ash Williams and it was an epic return at the Ash Bash hosted by the Starz Network in Hollywood. The street was shut down while thousands of fans of Ash vs Evil Dead enjoyed a free concert by Iggy Pop and the cast and crew walked the red carpet in celebration of the premiere inside the TCL Chinese theaters.

Watch the video as Louis Love ( Luis Lecca ) covers the event for Nuke the Fridge and interviews the cast and crew that includes Bruce Campbell, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Jill Marie Jones, and more on http://nukethefridge.com/

Ash vs. Evil Dead hasn't even premiered yet, and Starz has already renewed the horror-comedy for a second season. The Evil Dead reboot stars Bruce Campbell as the titular Ash, who has been avoiding humanity for the past 30 years.

Starz has given “The Evil Dead” fans an early Halloween treat by confirming that “Ash Vs. Evil Dead” has been renewed for a second season, four days prior to its premiere.

The series has generated strong buzz among horror fans as Starz has stoked anticipation for its return for months with well-placed screenings and online ballyhoo. The drama, exec produced by “Evil Dead” masterminds Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, bows Saturday, Halloween night, on the premium cabler. Craig DiGregorio is showrunner.

With the premiere only three more days away, things are heating up for Starz’s new series, Ash vs. Evil Dead. Following New York Comic-Con weekend where the premiere debuted to fans from all walks of life in the Hamemrstein Ballroom, we had a chance to catch up with director Sam Raimi on what it was like to bring the franchise to television and how hard it was to let go of its control once he realized he wasn’t going to be able to direct every episode himself.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Roger Murray's been working in props, makeup effects, and practical special effects for more than two decades. His credits include The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 30 Days of Night, the 2013 Evil Dead remake, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend. Murray's latest gig is designing the prosthetics and rigs for Ash vs Evil Dead, which he seems extremely game to do.

After laying dormant for two decades – minus a one-off 2013 remake – the Evil Dead franchise will finally be making its proper return to the eyeballs of fans this Saturday on Starz with the debut of Ash vs. Evil Dead starring Bruce Campbell as the famed Ash Williams. Now, with the show making noise with fans across the globe following a highly successful premiere at New York Comic-Con, we had a chance to sit down with Campbell himself to talk all about the ins and outs of making the show a reality.

Oh man. Back in August, Mondo announced they were releasing a 2 LP Army of Darkness Vinyl set for MondoCon (October 3-4 in Austin). I imagine the vinyl did well because according to their most recent newsletter, they’re selling it to the general public some time this Wednesday, October 28th!

The Evil Dead will be unleashed once again when Ash vs Evil Dead debuts Halloween night on Starz, but if you were hoping to see a crossover between Bruce Campbell’s Ash from the 1981 original Evil Dead and Jane Levy’s Mia from the 2013 remake, those hopes may have just been dashed.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Sam Raimi is often described as a master of horror and for good reason. As the director and co-writer of the original Evil Dead Trilogy, he is one of the men most responsible for putting phrases like “boomstick” and “swallow your soul” into the pop culture lexicon. However, he also hasn’t visited that world of Deadites and demons for over 20 years. Until now.

On Halloween night, the premiere episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead will debut on Starz to undoubtedly gory fan approval. We have already seen and reviewed that episode here, and we can vouch that Sam Raimi brings much of his bag of tricks to the foreground in the pilot episode that he co-wrote with his brother Ivan Raimi (who also co-scribed Army of Darkness and contributed to the earlier Evil Dead films as well). But while he is only directing this premiere half-hour of the first season, he has given a lot of thought about where Ash Williams is 30 years since entering that cabin in the woods, as well as where a new TV series can (and cannot) take him.

We chatted about that, the effect of the original Army of Darkness ending on the new TV series, and more when we sat down with Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi for a roundtable interview during San Diego Comic-Con.

Often, when someone describes a show as “fun,” what the other side hears is, “it’s bad, but it’s so entertaining that it doesn’t really matter.” Most recently, classifications such as this have been ascribed to the likes of Arrow, The Flash and Limitless. However, regardless of what the other side may think, all three of these shows (and others like them) are just as good, in their own ways, as anything else mainstream academy voters put up as “great” television, such as Breaking Bad, Mad Men and the most recent Emmy winner for best drama, Game of Thrones. It is in this vein we must judge Starz’s newest series, Ash vs. Evil Dead.

Thirty years after the events of the Evil Dead film series, Ash Williams is living quietly out of a trailer in Middle America so as to avoid the attention of the evil that once came for his life. However, everything changes the night he “accidently” reads from the Necronomicon and brings the evil to his doorstep. Now, seeing no other option, Ash must suit up one last time in order to translate the book and stop the evil once and for all.

Bar none, Ash vs. Evil Dead is the most entertaining show of the fall. It out-actions The Player, out-joys Limitless and out-paces Scream Queens. Of course, none of that’s surprising given the trailer that was released during San Diego Comic-Con this past summer. Rather, the real question that needs to be answered is: is Bruce Campbell’s return to the role that made him famous “good?” And the answer to that is no… it’s great.

Recently, I got the chance to talk with Jill Marie Jones, who you may recognize as lawyer Cynthia Irving from FOX’s Sleepy Hollow, and any concern that I may have had about the upcoming series was washed away through our phone call.

Jones’ excitement for the role of Amanda was overwhelming, and it became clear that she will be one to watch this season. An interesting thing about Jones, a Dallas native, is that she had never seen the movies in the franchise before learning about the part. Her excitement for the horror genre stemmed from an early age (she was a huge fan of the Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, and Exorcist franchises as a kid), and she knew that she wanted to be a part of this series after binge-watching the franchise.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams has been fighting monsters since the 1981 release of director Sam Raimi's 'The Evil Dead." So maybe he could teach the survivors on AMC's "The Walking Dead" a thing or two about slaying supernatural creatures.

Then again, maybe not. Campbell's wonderfully brash blowhard character tends to get by more on sheer bravado than brains. That won't change when he returns in "Ash vs. Evil Dead," a horror-comedy series that premieres at 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, on Starz.

With Ash, it's a case of a little older, not much wiser. Campbell was 21 when he filmed "The Evil Dead" in 1979 with Michigan high school buddy Raimi. He turned 57 in June, so he's playing Ash with many hilarious concessions to middle age.

This Ash needs an industrial-strength girdle to hold in his expanding gut. His dazzling smile now requires a mouthful of dentures. And a burst of creature killing might leave him slightly winded. Or, as he puts it, "My heart is jack-hammering like a quarterback on prom night."

"That's the fun of it," Campbell said during a telephone interview. "At an age when he no longer wants to be doing any of this, he brings something back upon himself. This is guy-with-lower-back-pain Ash. It's just the wrong time for the wrong guy, which is what I like about this.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Fans have been clamoring for its return, and that return will finally come when Starz premieres Ash vs Evil Dead on Halloween night. It marks the triumphant next chapter in the Evil Dead franchise — a franchise that delivered three cult classic movies in the 1980s that hardcore horror fans still hold dear to their hearts. So when I sat down with director Sam Raimi, star Bruce Campbell, and new addition Lucy Lawless, I couldn’t help but wonder if Raimi had any fear about tarnishing the legacy of the trilogy by bringing it back.

It may be early in the day, but the lines are already thick, stretching as far as the eye can see.

He seats himself behind a table covered with photographs of himself — some, showing him smiling, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, others, dressed as a cowboy, others still showing him drenched in blood — the lines begin their slow, methodical advance towards him.The first person — a man in his mid 20s — steps forward, his brawny arms and neck heavy with tattoos.As he approaches the man behind the table, a smile broadens across the tattooed man’s face and he holds out a unique token of appreciation — a chainsaw.

“Could you ... could you sign this for me?” the tattooed man meekly asks.“Sure, no problem,” the seated man replies. “Who should I make this out to?”It’s just another day at the convention for Bruce Campbell.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

The boomstick takes another shot on home media next Tuesday when Scream Factory unleashes their three-disc Collector's Edition Blu-ray of Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. Ahead of the anticipated release, we have clips and trailers from the film to help hold fans over and keep the Deadites at bay.

Starz’s anticipated premiere of itsoriginal seriesAsh Vs. Evil Dead, based on the classic Evil Dead horror films, will premiere in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide simultaneously with its network premiere in the U.S. on October 31.

In a first for Starz, the premium pay cabler said it constructed the global licensing deals with broadcasters and digital platforms based on the strong fan and distributor interest in the new series. Broadcasters and digital providers offering Ash vs Evil Dead on October 31 include Amedia (Russia/CIS), C More (Scandinavia), Fox Action on Fox+ Premium service/Fox Latin America Channels (Latin America/Brazil), Sky TV (New Zealand), Stan (Australia), Starz Play Arabia (Middle East/North Africa) and Super Channel (Canada).

“Fans of The Evil Dead have spoken with great passion and interest around the world, sparking high buyer demand for Ash vs Evil Dead,” said Michael Thornton, Chief Revenue Officer at Starz. “We are delighted to be able to provide flexibility to many of the key buyers serviced by Starz Worldwide Distribution and Starz Digital and thus allow for a wave of local Ash vs Evil Dead worldwide premieres on the ‘groovy’ date of October 31.”

Deadites around the world will be headed to their worksheds on October 31st. Thanks to a sweet deal from network Starz, ‘Ash vs. Evil Dead’ will premiere worldwide on the spookiest of holidays. Follow along with Hidden Remote as we learn how to say ‘groovy’ in 9 different languages.

This documentary chronicles my journey as a British Evil Dead superfan. How seeing it changed my life, sparking an interest in making my own short films and experimenting with gore effects, leading me onto a career in special effects in film & TV.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

We absolutely cannot wait for the Halloween night premiere of “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” and we’re pretty damn sure we’re not alone in saying that. The night before the big premiere, STARZ is hosting an all-night marathon of the original Evil Dead trilogy, so listen up and read on for all the details!

From the Press Release:Setting the stage for the premiere of the highly anticipated STARZ Original series “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” Starz presents a marathon of the cult classic Evil Dead horror franchise on Friday, October 30, beginning at 8:00pm ET/PT and hosted by Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell (Ash). The marathon will conclude with a sneak peek of the first episode of “Ash vs. Evil Dead” at 12:15 a.m. ET/PT.

The Evil Dead marathon kicks off with the original 1981 cult classic The Evil Dead at 8:00pm ET/PT on STARZ. This seminal horror movie features five friends who go to a cabin in the woods where they find unspeakable evil lurking in the forest. They discover the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead, which when translated releases a legion of demons and spirits. In order to survive the night, Ash must do battle with the evil dead.

The marathon continues with the 1987 sequel, Evil Dead 2, at 9:30pm ET/PT. Ash, the lone survivor of the original demon attack, returns in the second chapter of the cult franchise. Armed with a chainsaw and a shotgun, he again must fight the evil dead when a group of strangers interrupt his romantic vacation in a lonely cabin in the woods.

The Evil Dead marathon concludes with the 1992 third installment, Army of Darkness, at 10:55pm ET/PT and a sneak peek at the first episode of the STARZ Original series “Ash vs. Evil Dead.” In Army of Darkness our hero, Ash, is transported back in time to 1300 A.D. and once again faces off against the evil unleashed. In order to return to the present and get back home, he must take up his chainsaw and “boomstick” to defeat the Deadites and return the Necronomicon to its final resting place.

Fans will be encouraged to join the social media conversations throughout the night using #EvilDeadMarathon and other scene-specific hashtags that will appear within each movie.

For fans that can’t wait for the marathon, The Evil Dead is currently available on STARZ, STARZ PLAY, and STARZ ON DEMAND; and Evil Dead 2 will be available on STARZ PLAY and STARZ ON DEMAND from October 26 through October 30. Army of Darkness will be available on STARZ, STARZ PLAY, and STARZ ON DEMAND beginning November 1. “Ash vs. Evil Dead” will be available on STARZ PLAY and STARZ ON DEMAND on October 31 at 12:00 midnight.

Twenty-three years and unspeakable gallons of blood later, everyone’s favorite one-handed buffoon is back for yet another splatterfest. Ashley “Ash” J. Williams (Bruce Campbell), the title character from Sam Raimi’s cult-classic Evil Dead trilogy, heads up Ash vs Evil Dead, the 10-episode Starz series set for resurrection October 31. Here, a chat with the ultimate survivor.

They say time freezes during a traumatic moment, but the same can be said about a moment of disbelief.

Even though “Ash vs Evil Dead” doesn’t premiere on Starz until October 31st, I was lucky enough to check out the first two episodes of the new series that spins off of Sam Raimi’s legendary The Evil Dead franchise.

I have been waiting more than 20 years to see Bruce Campbell return as Ashley J. Williams. It’s been so long that my first viewing of the episode didn’t seem real. Technically, “Ash vs Evil Dead” is the extension of Raimi’s idea for Evil Dead 4, which meant that it lived in the same universe as the first two Evil Dead films and Army of Darkness. While there’s off-the-cuff references to the latter, Raimi takes a second of pause and give viewers a recap of the first two movies (through a projection on boxes in the back of Value Stop, Ash’s new place of employment).

Raimi directs the premiere episode, which focuses solely on an older and wiser(?) Ash. We learn that Ash exhumes the same air of confidence that he’s always had, so much so that he brings along Magnum condoms for his night in the bar bathroom. He’s still as witty as ever, with none of his jokes feeling schlocky or hammy. Even though he lives in a trailer and is a stock-boy, Ash’s chin is always up in quite an inspiring way. He’s still the anti-hero we’ve all grown to love.

The dark art of illustrator Graham Humphreys is finally seeing the light with an upcoming book and exhibition. His are the bold and bloody images to accompany the seminal horror films of our times, including A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Evil Dead

Friday, October 16, 2015

Roger Murray, on the phone from the New Zealand set of Starz's "Ash vs. Evil Dead," has one simple way to describe his job as the show's prosthetics designer and props supervisor: "I have to think about blood a lot."

He is, after all, the gore master in charge of the tanker's worth of fake blood — as much as 40 gallons for a big scene — required to bring Sam Raimi's splatstick revival of "Evil Dead" to life.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Actor reattaches his chainsaw arm as the horror-film franchise moves to the small screen

Bruce Campbell can still feel the oppressive cling of fake blood pulling at his skin after shooting the particularly gory scenes in his first movie, 1981's The Evil Dead. "I'd walk into a hot shower with my clothes on after a shoot because they were stuck to my body," he says. "The blood would pull all my hair off." The film was so over-the-top in its gruesome depiction of twentysomethings becoming possessed by evil spirits – after fiddling with an ancient Sumerian text (bound in human flesh, of course) that they'd found in the basement of a creepy cabin – that first-time filmmaker Sam Raimi didn't flinch when dubbing the low-budget flick "the ultimate experience in grueling horror." Ultimately, it became a cult hit; Stephen King called it "ferociously original" and Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson later said he found it inspiring.

Though the press notes that accompanied the screener sent to SHOCK forbade us (the great unwashed horror media) from revealing plot points from the first two episodes of the hotly anticipated STARZ series ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, we’re going to attempt an early, (almost) spoiler-free review, based exclusively on our impressions thus far.

Suffice to say, we are more than a bit enthusiastic about the program. In fact, for horror fans, this may be the most important television event since the premiere of AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD. And we’re ecstatic to reveal that, based on the pair of opening, 30 minute episodes screened, ASH VS. EVIL DEAD is bloody (and we mean bloody) brilliant entertainment, with nary a misspent minute. That’s right, EVIL DEAD fans…this is the one you’ve been waiting for.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Andrew David Barker's new book Dead Leaves. Dead Leaves is a novella and is Barker's second book. Barker's critically acclaimed debut, The Electric, sold out as a limited edition hardback and is currently available in paperback.

Dead Leaves is set in Barker's hometown of Derby, England during Britain's era of the video nasty in the 1980s. During this era, police rounded up and destroyed suspected video nasty tapes deemed harmful and morally reprehensible. The goal was to "save" the children of the UK from the gruesome images and violence depicted in these films. Mary Whitehouse, an English social activist, led this moral campaign to rid the UK of such works.

Barker's Dead Leaves chronicles the adventures of three friends in search of a VHS copy of The Evil Dead, perhaps the most infamous film on the video nasties list. These three friends, Scott, Paul and Mark have recently finished school. Scott and Paul are on the dole, with no real desire to begin working in the factories or warehouses of Derby. Mark, a year older than Scott and Paul, has secured employment and frequently cohabitates with his girlfriend, Lindsay.

Scott and Paul pass the time watching horror movies. Scott, in particular, is inspired by these films and wants to become a filmmaker. Scott's father is very much part of the working class in Derby and, along with his mother, is pushing Scott to apply at one of the local warehouses. Scott doesn't want to end up like his father. He doesn't want to just get a job, get married and have kids, only to be doomed in a dead-end job and paying the bills that comes along with that existence.

There are some fun moments in Dead Leaves all horror fans will appreciate. Scott and Paul are fans of Cronenberg and there is an interesting discussion about Lynn Lowry's physical attributes in Shivers and her background in soft-core porn. Black Christmas, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of The Dead and Halloween are some of the other films referenced. Scott's main escape from his dreary life is horror films. He dreams of becoming a horror filmmaker. Scott sums up his passion for these films with this passage:

"Naïve this may have been, but at seventeen, this was how I thought. In fact, I felt consumed by the idea. It centred me, and it felt good. Some days my ambition would wane – usually because I’d become bogged down by the pressure of the entire world insisting I get a shit job – and I would find myself feeling lost and depressed. But then I’d throw on a Romero film, or a John Carpenter, and I would be fixed again."

Dead Leaves also has many references to the music of the day. Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon", David Bowie's "China Girl" and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" are pop songs playing in the background while these young men peruse the local video store, Ray's Video Emporium. However, it is Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" that is preferred by the trio, deeming the song "an all-time classic". It seems befitting that this song, with its memorable main riff and galloping rhythm, inspired by Tennyson's “Charge of the Light Brigade”, would be this trio's anthem. It is at Ray's Video Emporium that Scott and Paul experience a police raid whereby many of the movies they love and enjoy are confiscated.

There is a wonderful passage in Dead Leaves in which Scott perfectly sums up why The Evil Dead is so important to him and other budding, young filmmakers. Even though he has not yet seen The Evil Dead, Scott has read the Fangoria and Starburst articles about the film and knows the story of how a young group of friends ventured from Michigan to Tennessee in November of 1979 to film a horror movie on their own terms. Part of that passage is as follows:

"I’d always thought of films as being made by established veterans who’d gotten into the business either through heritage and/or by their proximity to Hollywood. Movies were something other people got to make, not kids from the back of beyond. The idea that these guys went out to a cabin in Tennessee and came back with the most original and ferocious horror film in years blew my tiny little mind. It was punk rock.

It was the seed that sowed my future."

In conclusion, Dead Leaves is a coming of age story about three horror fans that is written for fans of the genre. This novella is about reconciling one's reckless teen years with impending adulthood and all of its responsibilities. Along the way, we get a glimpse of how Derby was in October of 1983. We see our main characters get involved in pub fights, police raids, video piracy, vandalism and even betraying one another. The search for a VHS copy of The Evil Dead certainly drives the plot, but the reader is really getting an understanding of what it is like to come of age during the Thatcher years, while Mary Whitehouse's firestorm of moral panic and censorship plays out.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Ash vs. Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell is so excited to resurrect the cult classic zombie series that he took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions about the new show from DIRECTV customers!

Watch the premiere of Ash vs. Evil Dead on October 31st only on Starz. Don't have Starz? Upgrade now! https://goo.gl/WCcIt9

Badass was the word of the evening at the Paley Center’s Ash vs. Evil Dead panel hosted by Vulture's very own Abraham Riesman last night. One of its stars, Jill Marie Jones (Sleepy Hollow), plays Amanda Fisher, a Michigan state trooper hot on the trail of Ash Williams, a role reprised by Bruce Campbell. “She’s a super-badass, and one of the things that attracted me so much to this role is the three female leads are all kickass. They’re not waiting on a man to save them. It’s like, You know what? I got this,” Jones told Vulture on the red carpet. “And I love that about it: They’re all strong characters, and that was very attractive to me.”

Dana DeLorenzo plays Kelly Maxwell, a clerk at the store where Ash works, and while she starts off hating him, she eventually becomes the female version of him. “I do consider her a Lady Ash, and I took a lot from Bruce Campbell, just watching him and how he carried himself on set and how he made this role,” said DeLorenzo. “Kelly is gonna be put through a lot this season, but she takes it all in stride, and she realizes what she’s actually capable of, so seeing her transition into that badass is a thrill.”

This Halloween Bruce Campbell returns as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario, and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity, and the terrors of the Evil Dead, in the Starz series “Ash vs. Evil Dead.” When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons –personal and literal. Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its evil grip.

We had a chance this morning to chat briefly with director Sam Raimi about the series…

Moderation by Kevin Smith, lady advice from the King himself...see what went down when Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, Craig DiGregorio, Lucy Lawless, Ray Santiago, and Dana DeLorenzo took the stage at the Ash vs Evil Dead panel.

“Ash vs Evil Dead” follows Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons –personal and literal. Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its “Evil” grip.

Monday, October 12, 2015

The Ash vs Evil Dead Social Team contacted Evil Dead News to let us know about their Ash vs Evil Dead premiere party at Grauman's Chinese Theater, Hollywood, CA on October 28th. They are dubbing this party #AshBash. EDN will award 9 tickets to our loyal readers/followers. Here's your chance to join Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, and the rest of the cast at #AshBash. There will be a private screening of the premiere episode of Ash vs Evil Dead and a live outdoor performance by Iggy Pop!

If you want one of these 9 tickets, send an email to evildeadnews@yahoo.com by 5PM PT on October 16th. Be sure to include your name and contact email. Those attending will receive a confirmation email from STARZ detailing the event. These tickets are first come first serve, so act fast! Please be aware that winning a ticket will not include travel and accommodations, so plan accordingly.

This past weekend Starz debuted the first episode of “Ash vs Evil Dead” to fans at the NYCC. While we’re under embargo for a week, we were able to get our hands on a massive image gallery that gives us a taste of what to expect through the first few episodes.